"Captain," said Cleggett, "you are a humane man—let me shake your hand. You have voiced my very thought!"
Long ago Cleggett had resolved that if Chance or Providence should ever gratify his secret wish to participate in stirring adventures, he would see to it that all his wounded enemies, no matter how many there might be of them, received adequate medical attention. He had often been shocked at the callousness with which so many of the heroes of romance dash blithely into the next adventure—though those whom they have seriously injured lie on all sides of them as thick as autumn leaves—with only the most perfunctory consideration of these victims; sometimes, indeed, with no thought of them at all.
"Something tells me," said Cleggett seriously, "that this intrusion of armed men is only a prelude. I have little doubt of the hostility of Morris's; I am sure that the men who hid in the hold are spies from Morris's. I do not yet know the motive for this hostility. But the Jasper B. is in the midst of dangers and mysteries. There is before us an affair of some magnitude. Ere the Jasper B. sets sail for the China Seas, there may be many wounds."
And then he began to outline a plan that had flashed, full formed, into his mind. It was to rent, or purchase, the buildings at Parker's Beach, and fit them up as a field hospital, with three or four nurses in charge. Lady Agatha, who had been listening intently, interrupted.
"But—the China Seas," she said. "Did I understand you to say that you intend to set sail for the China Seas?"
"That is the ultimate destination of the Jasper B." said Cleggett.
"I have heard—it seems to me that I have heard—that it's a very dangerous place," ventured Lady Agatha. "Pirates, you know, and all that sort of thing."
"Pirates," said Cleggett, "abound."
"Well, then," persisted Lady Agatha, "you are going out to fight them?"
"I should not be surprised," said Cleggett, folding his arms, and standing with his feet spread just a trifle wider than usual, "if the Jasper B. had a brush or two with them. A brush or two!"